To Remember Occupy, Part Two

Part 2 of our conversation with Vicky Osterweil about the legacy of Occupy in activist theory and tactics

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome Dick had Happened Here a podcast about a crumbling
empire and planting seeds in the spaces between. Here's part
two of our interview with Vicky Austin while about the
legacy of Occupy Wall Street. But but you know, like
you were saying, you know, like that that you know,
don't get arrested, it's bad. So I think when Occupy
really started, you know, we were mostly people who had
been educated by the co optation of the civil rights movement,

(00:24):
which is that it was all non violent and that
the whole thing was getting arrested, and Martin Luther King
was like the only voice that made any sense and
that was what was affective. Blah blah blah blah blah. Um.
We had all learned that in school, right, We had
all been trained that like non violence was like the
only thing that made sense and that worked. Um. And
I think like those of us who learned about it
at all in school, which is certainly not everyone, But
like I think, like like the the experience of occupy

(00:46):
of like every day just getting beat up by the
cops every day, like getting attacked, getting arrested. Some people
got really some people got really nihilistically nonviolent, like some
people like really dug in and they're like like like
we're like no, like there is nothing we can do
except be beaten in the turn of this like real
masochistic game. But that happens. That still, Oh yeah, that's

(01:11):
that's one. That's one common response. But another thing that
happened was that people started breaking through that that that ship. People.
People started on the ground. Like I remember a march,
you know, early on, you know, the police would attack
and everyone would sort of like try to de escalate,
and people would try to like you know, like like
talk to the cops or whatever. And like by November
when right before the camps got cleared, I remember being

(01:31):
on a march where we stole all of their orange
betting we're using and you're just holding it over our
head at large and like trapping cops in it. So
like even in New York where things never gotten that intense,
um like in some ways in terms of direct action
like that lesson on the ground, like you have to
be you have to be very ideologically committed to get

(01:52):
hit with the baton three times and still think the
police are on your side. You know, you have to
like really you have to really be drinking the kool aid,
and some people are like some people really they do
want to believe that. But I think, um, I think
that was one. So during occupy, like those of us
who hated the police were pretty lonely even though the
police were beating us up. But by the end of occupy,
the seeds had really been sown for a lot of

(02:15):
generational understanding of the police that didn't necessarily immediately so
fruit like it wasn't immediately obvious, but I think, like,
I think like folks who stayed in struggle from there
grew more and more anti police. Yeah, that was that
in general, that was well, okay, so my mystres was
less with occupying more with like the two dozen thirteen

(02:36):
stuff in Turkey, But it like that that was because
I was brought up in that, like the sort of
like foe Gandhian like yeah, MLK Civilisipians, and then it
was like like I watched Turkey happened and it was like, hey,
here's my friend just like getting his ribs broken by
a cop, and then like there's RaBaD and you know,
and it were bas sort of where with the Egyptian
movement dies and they were bad. They just you know,

(02:57):
they bring out the machine guns and they just shoot everyone. Yeah,
and at a certain point, like you know, this is
the limited non violence, right is that what happens if
they to shoot you and and Gandhi? You know, if
what if you ever want to like go down to
the Gandhi rabbit hole, like Gandhi like writes this letter
to like like the Jews of Germany where he's telling

(03:18):
them to like throw themselves on the blades of the Nazis,
and it's like this, it's it's this is this is
like yeah, it sucks. This is ridiculous, like just this
is like it's being complacent for abuse. Um Anyonedow Studios
has a really good video on why non violence helps
the state um and how basically activists that try to

(03:42):
force other you know, demonstrators to adhere strictly to non violence,
that's basically that's that's them, and that's them basically saying
that if like that, that's then endorsing the police beating
somebody up like like that. Like that's it's it's not
actually tied to any kind of moving and it doesn't
actually help like I and we could actually see this

(04:03):
last year with like the first few weeks of like
you know, abuse from the state actually making headlines and
actuated changing people. But after a while it just didn't matter.
Like a cop could put someone down and pummel their
face in like August, and like who gives this ship? Nobody,
Like it doesn't it doesn't matter, you know, Like That's
that's why I found it funny when you talked about, like,

(04:25):
you know, people getting mad because cops are like macing
people when they surren into them, And I'm like, if
that happened, no one, no one would give a ship,
Like yeah, well, like I think not at all anymore. Yeah, well,
I think I think part of it is the first
time that you see it, it's like what on earth?
It's like this? This is this I think has been

(04:46):
one of the things that's been the core of the
whole sort of nineteen like late sort of cycle revolutions
is that like if you're just like a dude in
a grocery store and some guy is in is like
running away from the cops and then like fifteen riot
cops and just start beating the shot out of them,
which is the thing that happens like a lot like

(05:06):
if you just see that, right, there's no way you
can actually, like like if you ordinary person just witness
the cops running up and just being the show of someone, like,
there's no way you can't not be sort of radicalized
against the police by it. But like, yeah, but there's
there's a certain point where you hit it. The decentilization
happens more quickly than what it should. Um, and we

(05:29):
stopped caring. I agree. I agree with both of you
that like that, Like both it is shocking and radicalizing
and we get desensitized because there is so much spectacular
pressure to naturalize the police and non violence ideology as
part of that, as part of naturalizing police violence, right, Like,
there's nothing you can do about the police violence. Um,
So all you can do is control yourself, and therefore

(05:51):
you should you know, you should be better or whatever. Yeah,
Gandhi had this whole fantasy about, um, the perfect army
would march unarmed into machine gun fire, um and would
just be mowed down. It's it's he's a fascist, frankly.
Um And And yeah, and you only need to look
at his opinions about black Africans when he was when
he Africa to see that even if you even if
you just read like like even if you just read

(06:14):
like self reliance, it's like this is you know, it's
not everything I want to talk about with with the
peace police though, which is that like they're also like
in terms of like fighting, like inflicting violence on other protesters,
Like they are the most violent, like of of of
the factions you've seen in a pro that does happen

(06:35):
very well, maybe not the most, Like it does happen
like like they beat people up, Like I was just
gonna say, like it ties into like protest security, and
when protest security is usually working with these more like
peace police type organizers, and then they use protest security
to literally beat up people who are doing more radical
action against the state. Um. That happens all the time. Yes,

(06:58):
oh yeah, protest security. When I see protest security or marshals, UM,
I know exactly that that the that we're in a
bad we're in a bad march. Um. The only time
I've ever been physically assaulted by another protester was during
Occupy actually um during after the night after we've been evicted, um,
which is like November fift I think, Um, And if
people don't remember Obama and the FBI coordinated this nationally.

(07:20):
All the occupying encampments got swept within a week of
each other. Um. On that march, Um, we're marching around
even march arount all night, um, and I'm just dragging
a trash can into the street because we're being followed
by police cars, and I'm literally attempting to like do
some education at the same time. I'm like pulling the
trash can in the street, and I'm yelling, you know,
I am doing this because i want to protect us

(07:40):
from police violence. Like if this is in the street,
then the cop cars can't catch us as much. That's
why we build Barakat. I'm like literally trying to like
yell this because, like, you know, because pulling a trac
can the streets incredibly and effective ultimately, So it was
like literally it was literally just like for education purposes
at that point basically anyway, especially since a lot of
people would like pull them back out of the street. Whatever.
This guy runs up on me and grabs me by

(08:01):
the collar and lifts me up and like threatens me
with this fucking fist, and he says, if my mom
can't get to work tomorrow because of you, like I'll
beat the ship out of it. And we're like we're
marching in Manhattan and like one am, I'm like, what
the hell are you talking about? And like he would
have he would have hurt me, like pretty bad if
a friend of mine had like luckily had my back
and like de escalated a bit. That's the only time
I've ever been like physically like brought up, like into

(08:23):
a fight um with by by another protester. Was was
a guy insisting that me dragging a trash can into
the street. It was beyond the pale. But I want
to just talk a bit more, but like how systematic
the violence was, like because Okay, so originally I was

(08:43):
gonna try to get someone from Occupy Oaklands to come
talk about this, and I talked to a lot of people,
and the biggest thing that I got was that no
one would talk about it on the record because they
got because Oakland had Oakland had a blacklist. And if
if you were inoccupy and like anyone else found out
about it, like people like people couldn't people spent half
a decade just not being able to find jobs because

(09:05):
they they just play black listed at you one and
like to this day. Like the thing I was told
was like, yeah, I'm I won't talk about this because
you know, like if if I talk about this, like
I will be fired, all of my family everyone around
me will be fired. And there's like I think, like
this is the everything. But when we talked about sort
of the collapsive occupy, the the extent to which after
Obamba in the f ordered the camps closed. The policy

(09:29):
is that the comps are going to torture anyone who
attempts to like gather in a place yep, yep. For
for two years, you couldn't have a meeting outside without
a police attacking basically, and yeah, um and and yeah,
I mean it was it was you know, I think
like a lot of um, the people who now claim
that that occupy is the reason that they do politics

(09:50):
or whatever for Bernie Sanders or whatever. UM, at the
time they were saying that the reason it collapses because
there was no UM organization. There was no structure, there
was no political party, there was no you know whatever,
there was no demands. And like it's true that it
was poorly organized, like there's no doubt, UM, but like
we got beat out of the streets, like we got

(10:10):
beat out of the streets, and like people tried for
six months really intensely, and for another six months after
that less intensely to restart that energy. Um. There was
all this works forwards, like a general strike on May Day, um,
two thousand and twelve, which ended up not really working,
which is actually exactly the kind of demand filled one
day of action kind of politics that they were demanding
actually really failed, which I think is telling. But but

(10:33):
in the meantime, like you know, like occupy like Zuccati
got cleared. But for a while, there was the thing
No one remembers this, I don't think, but there was
a thing up in um uh Union Square. Um, there
was an occupation for three weeks. There was like all
the Union Square freaks um and like a bunch of
occupiers um. And yeah, the cops just like it was
just like batons out on site for a few years

(10:55):
in New York, and I know it was like that
everywhere else or most everywhere else, and that that came
down from on high that like the police were just like, oh,
what was dangerous about this was people gathering in public,
So we really need to like we really need to
like enforce the second Amendment being meaningless. Now we really
need to stop meetings from happening in public. Um. And

(11:15):
that violence was super intense and super real, and a
lot of people got beaten out of the movement, you know,
And a lot of people got really demoralized and left.
And I understand why. Um. It was scary and awful,
and there was a lot of repression and um, you know,
and it and it, and it has continued to sort
of that that kind of repression has continued to escalate. UM.
But what has successfully happened in our movements, I think,

(11:38):
to our to our credit, is that we haven't actually
formed the kinds of hierarchical organizations that allow for more
effective police repression. All the police have right now against us,
for the most part is batons in the street. Um.
They have a lot more trouble infiltrating. UM, a lot
more trouble, Which doesn't mean they aren't trying like crazy,
but they have a lot more trouble um, um taking

(11:59):
down the movements in the in a sort of cointel
pro way, right. Um. The modes of oppression have changed
a bit. UM, But that's also because we don't have
It's a combination of fact that we don't have those
forms of organization, but we also don't have those forms
of organization because they don't emerge spontaneously from our living
conditions like they used to. Um So, I think it's
it's you can't just give credit to any one thing.

(12:20):
There's a lot of different factors that play. I will
say one of one of the other things that I've noticed,
and I think, I think, I'm pretty sure this happened
to talk people are talking about that occupies. It like
the first thing if you have a group of people
who are just they're the first thing the cops trying

(12:41):
to do is a point a leader so that they
have one person that they can do so and this
and this lets them sort of this this sort of
like access point to which they sort of break like
the demands of the crowd is that they find one
person they point in the lead and they get that
person to sort of like be the liaison. My favorite
Occupied joke, I gotta give respect to Occupied Denver. This
is the best joke that ever happened. And Occupy they
announced the beginning of one week on Friday, we are

(13:02):
going to announce our leader, Occupy Denver has chosen a
leader and the whole movement got so upset and everyone
was so angry. I was like, what the fuck? And
then like they had this like big press conference and
their leader was a golden retriever. It was like a
who knows to occupied Denver? Whoever organs that prank? I
love you, I guess, yeah, speaking thinking of kudos to

(13:23):
a place. The last thing I wanted to talk about
was the giant like port occupation strike thing in Oakland,
because I mean that that wasn't the first time people
had done it, Like I know, I know during the
anti war movements even do like a thousand seven eight,
there's once people trying to occupy ports. But in Oakland
they like did it. They really they put like forty

(13:45):
thousand people like in this in the port of Oakland
and they shut it down. And I think that was
like that was one of the things one of the
stories kind of been lost from this because like you know,
like that was the point. Like so like I know
people in Oakland who like they got like drugged repeatedly
drugged by police informants because particularly Oakland. Also Oakland is

(14:08):
also way the walk by ok Bood is way way
less white than any other movements and they get like
the kind of police oppression they get is like it's
just like yeah, you know again like people people being
repeatedly drugged by informants, like cops shooting people in the face,
like the you know, you have you have the black list,

(14:30):
you have all this stuff. And I think, you know,
part of it yeah, yeah, And I think part of
it is because part of it's because it's a bunch
of non white people and that's you know, that's just
what happens. But I think another part of it was
also that there was this fear about Yes, so so

(14:50):
the reason the poor strike is able to happen is
because there's sort of there's a complicated game here where
the people like sort of got involved in in like
longshoreman union politics. But that sort of like fusion of
of you have all the people in the street and
then they start shining down ports and that like like
the cops like lose their minds over that. Like that

(15:13):
that I think was like extremely scary to them in
a lot of wiz Yeah, I mean, you know, I
would you know, I would defer to anyone from Oakland
who was who was there during that you know, I
have comrades there. I've talked to you have read about
it since. But you know, I think I think part
of the heightened police oppression and the heightened power of
the Oakland occupied Oakland folks was Oscar Grant rebellion. Like

(15:35):
I mentioned the two thousand nine which had happened, which
had you know, I have been a few hundred people,
but it had been really rowdy. They'd been like looting
and smashing. Um. Maybe maybe more than a few hundred.
Maybe y're a thousand people on the big on the
first night. Um. And you also obviously have the legacy
of the Black Panthers in Oakland, so you know, the
Black Panther Party, you know, forms in Oakland at last
in Oakland a decade and a half longer than it
does anywhere else in the country. Um. So there's a

(15:57):
lot of like And you also have the really really
intense touch ocase in the Bay that's happening. So there's
an incredible political and economic pressure in the Bay combined
with this history of radicalism that really you know, um,
but yeah, I think also the other thing that's really interesting.
I think what you said, like you you put your
you know, you hit the nail on the head, Like
it was largely like it was terrifying that it was
the most effective direct action in the occupy movement I

(16:18):
think was that port shutdown. I think, without a doubt,
like the biggest mass direct action that that occupy achieved, um,
was that November twelve. Was that was that with the
data that I don't remember near the end of the
near the end of the cycle. Um. And I think
like the other thing about um about that though, that
that was very similar to the altar globalization movement, right

(16:39):
where the unions had sort of teamed up with you know,
like in Seattle, there's a lot of trade unions on
the ground next to all the black blocks, right, um.
And I think like that that image, Um, I think
really it's really interesting. It really terrified the police, and
it really it could be it could have been a
vector for a certain kind of like labor first politics
that could have emerged. But instead the labor first people

(17:00):
have turned out to be all electoralists. Yeah, it seems
that that's sort of a weird blip that hasn't really returned. Um. Yeah.
And it's interesting too because like because now like you know,
like the the the A F l C. I oh,
just like you know a f l C. A is
like no cop unions great, And it's like there's this
there's this sort of like split between the street movements

(17:20):
and organized labor because they're off doing like electoral stuff
and like cops ship which is this sort of yeah,
and and and and have been now for for seven decades,
you know, I mean, I mean really like like the
buying off of the unions and the New Deal, um,
you know, with some brief you know, with brief windows
of like wildcat action in the seventies and the nineties. Um,

(17:42):
the buying off of the unions has has never really
gone away. Industrial unionism in the US has has long
been and in and in Europe everywhere where everywhere where
those developed in the early twenty century, that labor movement, Um,
they've really been successfully bought off. And I don't think
there is I don't think that those unions are like
a big easy route to power anymore than I don't

(18:02):
I don't like, I don't think they're going to overthrow
the government. I mean, but I will say, yeah, this
is this is my my also my the thing that
I plug every time is at the A F l
c I O over through a end a like yeah,
like like they they they're there are people on the
ground were like directing like like we're we're directing a
bunch of the anti Allende stuff. And it's like and
it was the and it was the Union bureaucracies, like

(18:23):
more recently in two thousand one, who are in the
wake of September eleventh, who transformed the anti globalization rhetoric
into buy American, which it turned out was often buying
prison made materials. But like that was that was the Union.
The Union sort of um defanged the defanged alter globalization
into buy American. And there's there's a thing, like there's
a whole another story there about how that like how

(18:44):
anti globalization turned from like you know, the Zapatistas to
like Trump, which is incredibly depressing, and yeah, goes goes
through this line of sort of like the replacement of
internationalism with nationalism and that kind of like by local
stuff and the fact that like these people sort of

(19:07):
just decided that you know personally after Seattle part left
not eleven, they're just like we're not doing direct action again.
And in Oakland's like Oakland's likes like that that's like,
that's like the one big exception to that was that moment,
and then it just kind of just has never happened again.
And that's partially because that that union that I LW
is I l W I think out there is on

(19:28):
the on the boards that was a particularly like radical
union that had happened in Wildcats like and and was
like like more democratic than any of the many of
the other unions and in in those those hips. But
uh yeah, but that's that's also like a big story
for another time. Obviously. The connotation of global anti globalization
over the twenty year period, Yeah, you know, it's a

(20:00):
out of corny, but like what what can we actually
learn from what happened there? What went wrong and sort
of what the limits of it was? Yeah, okay, So
the legacy, So I think one legacy that um, the
legacy that is most widely accepted and known, which we
can go over quickly, is that it reintroduced class discourse,

(20:22):
largely into the popular you know then, which is a
very very bad class politics. But like you know, like um,
like the you know, it reintroduced some of that sort
of class war class war discourse and um, and I
think more important than that, but but not that dissimilar.
It UM reintroduced UM street politics into the US. UM.

(20:43):
I think part of the legacy that gets forgotten UM
because like the general the global nous of the wave
gets forgotten as well. Like is that when when ship
pops off in New York, everyone in the world knows,
or at least they did then, right because America had
been so successfully you know, appeased politically for so long

(21:05):
that I think that when occupy popped off UM in
rather it really like signals to the world, like the
rest of the world like, oh, like this is real,
like even in the you know, even in the center
of empire, like like people are rising up. UM. It's
hard to remember and it's weird, but like there was
an occupy in UH New York, in a UK, there
was one in Tel Aviv. There was actually kind of
like a pro Palestinian occupy in Tel Aviv briefly UM.

(21:29):
And you know, I think maybe the most powerful sort
of immediate tactical UM offshoot of occupied was occupyed Nigeria UM.
In the first weeks of UM when President good Luck
Jonathan UM took took the fuel subsidies away and they
were like sort of two weeks of really intense revolutionary
rioting um in in Nigeria that that then called themselves

(21:50):
Occupy as a way of being legible to the rest
of the world. Um. I think the other legacies though
that are that are a little more sort of subtle,
I guess is like that a lot of folks still
in the struggle now, Like I will still meet people,
you know, my age, who like I've met I have
two comrades here in Philly who I didn't know at
the time, but who were organizing in New York, right,

(22:10):
Like we probably hung out in rooms together, like we
probably like we were probably in the same space as
But like, so like a lot of folks, you know it,
each of these waves that has come has left, you know,
some people leave, some people swing right, but like there's
a residue of folks that like becomes the base for
the next movement. And I think like Occupy really did
provide a lot of people in a way that the

(22:30):
gap between alter globalization and Occupy didn't produce nearly as
large a contingent of people, although of course there are
those people. UM. But I think also like really importantly,
like the tactics of occupy. Like one of the things
that was incredible about the George Floyd uprising was that
every tactic that we UM have tried in the last

(22:51):
ten years re emerged. Right. There was a prison strike,
there were indigenous blockades, there were me Too style callouts UM,
which of course developed out of UM punk and queer
scene call outs that have been going on for a decade.
But there were occupations, right, you had the chairs in Seattle,
which we can you know, well, well what we're Yeah,
we will get to that one day in any case,

(23:12):
in any case, like I think like that that has
remained in the repertoire of poltarian struggle, like as a
result of of occupy and and and if it had
just been occupied, maybe it wouldn't be as a result
of the global movement of the squares, which obviously goes
until Terrier Square and Turkey. I think it's probably the
Gezi Park in a Turkey UM, which is like the

(23:35):
last big moment of the squares really UM, but that
five year wave like it was really really important, UM globally,
really really important locally as well, UM in terms of
building activists, building a class of of well I don't
you know whatever, building revolutionaries whatever you want to call them,
the good version of the thing, not the bad version.
You produced a lot of them, um and um, And

(23:56):
I think like in terms of its limits and like
what we can learn from it, Like, I think, I
think taking the police more seriously it was really important.
I think taking police violence more seriously was a really
important legacy of occupy. I think, Um, I think pushing
towards the limit of what total democracy meant. A lot
of people and Occupy remember that like a lot of

(24:17):
Ron Paul people are like weirdo like and the Fed
cranks and like right wingers like spoken Occupy and like that.
That that total open populism of of occupy I think
was both probably its greatest strength and its ultimate limit, right,
which was that like it was never going to be
able to really like sharpen itself into the into the knife,
and it wanted to be to like really change the

(24:37):
face of global capital or whatever, um because of because
there were so many white, yeah, middle class and like
like a bunch of the like a lot of the
like the current for right media people came out like
Center Fairbanks was like an Occupy streamer, Simpool Yeah, you're
welcome for tim Poole. UMO was filming on the last day,

(24:59):
a bunch of us um doing some things and Timpoole
did not manage to continue filming, is all I'll say.
And after that is when he started swinging right, So
you're welcome over. Um anyway, Sorry, that guy is a
fucking asshole. He was an asshole then. Though. I think
what's important to know is that a lot of these
people were suss as hell back then to occupy folks,

(25:20):
like they were around and occupy because of the nature
of occupy, like but like they were, we already didn't
like them, you know, like a lot of these people
were already unpopular. We're already disliked in the movement. Um.
So yeah, um, but yeah, I think I think so.
I think you know, there is there there are all
these different legacies um from it that I think, um, ultimately,

(25:44):
the legacy things that emerged are much more important than occupy. UM.
I think, you know, one of the things about it
was that it really was just like the reemergence of
street politics, and like like as the re emergence of
street politics, like it was pretty limited and it was
not that effective at changing things, um. And also it
was incredibly effective at leading to those last decades of

(26:05):
struggle in the US. And I think you can't you know,
I think there's a tendency to want to judge movements
by the immediate results that they produce, you know. Um
And like, you know, I think it is this my
about to quote now, I think I am was it
like when when he gets asked, you know, what was
the what was the you know in in the twentieth

(26:25):
anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, he gets asked, like, what
was the what was the outcome of the Chinese Revolution?
He says, it's too early to tell, right, Like, I think,
like that maybe that's I don't remember who that is.
They were right, Yeah, they were right. They were a
lot more people died than what we thought. Yeah. Yeah,
it's like, yeah, they successfully transitioned to capitalism and the

(26:46):
Yeah yeah it was yeah. So, um, so what was
the result of occupy? It's too early to tell, um,
But I think, like I also think, like the things
that we've talked about here, um were core components of
what what why? It matters? I do one other kind
of effect that it's had, And it's hard for me
to gauge this because I've only been around post occupy,
but I feel like now when people try to get

(27:08):
stuff started, they really fall kind of into an occupy
mindset where they're like, the only way to make this
successful is to hold this space. And I think that
is really a default way that even more experience, like
both experienced organizers and new organizers really kind of keep
you saying the word default. It's because like that's just
that's just really like what they go into. You saw

(27:30):
this in a lot of different cities last year. Really
they like people trying to set up spaces to hold UM.
A lot of them did not work, you know, a
lot of them. A lot of them were like, oh, yeah,
we're trying to try to hold the space for like
an hour, because then the cops pushed us out right,
and you know, in a place like the chairs they
got extended out a bit longer that Chad has had
its own problems um an other cities in the Pacific Northwest.

(27:52):
This happened a city, it happened, and it happened a
lot of places. I mean, like I think George Floyd
Square is maybe one of the more honestly successful ones.
UM for how they were able to actually kind of
keep police away, and they did they avoided turning it
into this big media thing like like with the Chaz
did Um And I don't know, I think I grew

(28:15):
very I saw a lot of people kind of grow
kind of frustrated with this like kind of occupy mentality
because what that kind of results in is people just
setting up outside of a police headquarters and trying to
stay there for as long as possible, which is like
that's not doing anything, You're just kind of waiting to
get beat up. Um. Yeah. Yeah, but it's complicated though, right,

(28:37):
Like in defense of that tactic, like I think like
like that was also very color. That was also very
core to Ferguson. Right, they held West Florescence for a
week and a half. Now, they did it much. They
didn't do it by setting up tents and sitting there. Um.
And also like you know, like like a thing that
gets forgotten a lot in the lot in the histories,
you know, occupy Ice it was pretty small. I was
big here in Philly, it was it was massive here

(28:57):
in Portland. Yeah. Yeah. So so like there were moments
when that tactic really does like it's important to have
a space to meet in. And I think we did
learn that, but I also agree that it has become
like any tactic that works once it becomes a fetish, right. Yeah,
it's always trying to balance space because like you know,
the two big things that have happened the past ten years,
it's occupying Hong Kong. So people try to balance these

(29:19):
two kind of almost opposing things like hold this space
and be water. That's kind of the two things that
people yell at the street back and forth, and no
one really knows what to do because it was yelling
slogans and and and I was I was there saying
about this. So they're like the one time the people
in Hong Kong got pinned down when when they had
to they had this sle versus siege, it was a

(29:40):
ship show, like you know what I say, Like the
people in Hong Kong, like you know, okay, like even
when they're like they they did not have by by
by the time you're getting to the sort of decision
of the universities like that, like you know, like they
had like molot They had like like Molotov workshops, Like
there were people like standing the roof shooting bows and arrows.

(30:01):
And cops and it's like it just wasn't enough. And
I mean and part partially personally, that has to do
with the fact that, like, you know, Hong Kong is
in a uniquely bad position insofar as it is one city,
and it's like the the the only possible way that
asposment in Hong Kong like ever just doesn't get crushed
by just the fact that they're outnumbered, like a thousand

(30:21):
to one is if it spreads. But like yeah, and
it became this you know, like that that moments like yeah,
that this that that the whole problem with with friend
to hold space became really apparently because even if you
have an extremely large number of people right like like
attacking one isolated space in mass even think the cops

(30:42):
are really good at and I think they really bad
at is trying to deal with like you know, like
five hundred people, like seven hundred instances of five hundred
people going through places because it just aren't enough of them.
But yeah, that was what was it? Like the head
of who wasn't it was a big and then national
least in the National Police, uh you know whatever, um

(31:02):
said that like we can very easily handle one March
of ten thousand people, but we can't handle ten marches
of one. It was and you gotta see this in Chicago,
feel like this is this is this is how the
police lost control of of of the miracle miles. Like yeah,
it was just there's people everywhere for everywhere and yeah,
I don't know, yeah I know, And that's and that's
how that's that's what you know. I mean, certainly in
Philly where it was, where it was very very powerful.

(31:24):
That's what the George Floyd rebellion looked like, was with
people were everywhere in Philly, all the neighborhoods. You know,
people didn't you know, like we were out there, you
know whatever, um and like they're like people didn't know
what was going on Free Block South, you know what
I mean. Like it was like that, like there was
just there were fights happening everywhere. And under those conditions,
the police can't can't, no matter how militarized they are,

(31:44):
they can't act um effectively. Anyway they can act. They
certainly will, they will act like pigs um. But but
I think like, yeah, so I think that that that
sort of dispersion, But I think the other there's so
there's I'm going to promote a really really weird no
crank book right now, but before twenty century, like literary weirdos.

(32:06):
Guy Uh alias Connetti um Italian wrote this book called
Crowds and Power, where he attempts to he attempts to
describe the entirety of human history and anthropology in terms
of crowds. This is obviously impossible and ridiculous, but that
book has the best descriptions of crowd dynamics I have
ever encountered anywhere, And I like, I like people who

(32:28):
take big swings because they end up they miss. Miss
has lots of interesting stuff. Um. I think that's why
people like Settlers by Jason Kai so much. Like I
think the thesis wasn't great, but there's so much incredible
stuff in that book that like it works anyway. Um
that having a really wild thesis allows you to like
really like get into some Yeah. So anyway, one of
the things that Connetti talks about in that book is
that UM a crowd uh an open crowd. As he

(32:51):
describes it, an open crowd is um must constantly be growing,
and the moment it stops growing, it starts shrinking. Right
YEA like this, I think that dynamic UM in terms
of both movement and like a momentary protest or riot
right is like really real, I can and I think
one of the things that UM, particularly organizers are trained

(33:13):
to do and like that that that we learned to do,
especially in law periods, and we're like organizing these little
you know, you know, these little crystallized groups of like
hard cadre or whatever is that, like you that like
what we learn as organized is something that is defendable.
But once you start defending something, you start losing it
because we cannot take on the state or the police

(33:33):
in a head on confrontation. UM. And this is this
can be confusing because sometimes you can successfully defend for
a few weeks, maybe even a few months. You can
defend a space sometimes, but once people get really interested
in the defending, then they begin forming bureaucracies, governments, internal policing,
security forces, whatever it is. They start becoming the like
the the They start undermining the very thing that made

(33:55):
it powerful, which was this sudden rapid growth, this sudden
like you know, like like big explosion of power and
self recognition that comes in the beginning of movement. And
I think I don't think there's a way to will
that problem away. Like I don't think we can just
like think our way out of it, like it's just
a problem. But I do think that like one thing

(34:17):
that we could take from the experience of occupy and
the experience the last decade is that like if you do,
you know, consider yourself someone who wants to participate in
these kind of movements, which is probably why you're listening
to this podcast. Um right now, UM, don't try and defend, Like,
don't try and defend, Like some things will need to
be defended sometimes obviously, but like if your main thing

(34:37):
is like the thing, we should never defend something we've
achieved so far, Um, we should never not be willing
to destroy it in order to like build something bigger, right,
Like we should never no movement thing that we have,
be it an occupy part, be it be it like
a take in space. Defending that should never outweigh the
possibility of expanding. And if our strategic mindset obviously moment

(35:01):
to moment you can't just be thinking that constantly. But
the strategic mindset is like what we have now is
only good to the extent that it can turn into
something more. Um, Rather than we have to defend what
we have now. If you can think that way, I
think it opens up a lot of strategic possibilities. UM.
And I think it's it's what has worked over the

(35:22):
last decade that I've seen is UM, when people attack,
when people expand, when people try to do try to
do new stuff. It doesn't always work and it doesn't
always hold. But that's what When that stuff stops happening,
the movement is doomed. I think I think that I
think that's a really good way to wrap things up.
I think that's a nice, beautiful sentiment. I kind of

(35:43):
view this type of thing in more than just protests
and you know, and into different pasts of life. I
think you can always learn from past experiences, from past struggles,
but if you try to perfectly replicate them, you're absolutely
gonna fail. You can, you can always learn and move on,
but you should not be focused on any kind of replication.
Is there any of your bookstore writings you'd want to

(36:05):
plug before we wrap up here? Sure? Yeah, I mean
I wrote a book that came out last year, UM
called in Defensive Looting. UM came out UM with bold
type UM. I am currently also writing Um, I'm obsessed
with movies. I write a movie review um column for
the Al Jazeera Plus. Um, I did not know news letters. Yeah,

(36:26):
the news letter sub stack. Um, if you want to read,
I mean it's really it is really movie reviews. So
if you want, you know, cranky anarchist theory, it's not
the spot for you. Um. Otherwise, Yeah, I'm I'm on
a pretty long social media break right now. But good
for you there. Eventually I'll probably come back inevitably unfortunately. Yeah,
you know, I just have I have writing popping up

(36:48):
every every now and then, and um, and if you
read it, I would appreciate it. Well. Yeah, absolutely wonderful.
Thank you, and yeah, thank you for so much for
coming on to talk about, um, occupying stuff that I
think a lot of people hear about, but you know,
at least all of my generation does not fully kind

(37:09):
of grasp it. Um. It is. It is literally my pleasure.
Like I you know, I wasted so much of my
life thinking about this. I'm so glad to be able
to share some of it with some people. I'm so
so glad you're able to join us too. This is
I've've been looking forward to us for a while. Yeah,
that's very excited. All right. That wraps up us today.

(37:32):
You can find us on Twitter and Instagram, at cool
Zone Media and Happen Here Pod. We'll be back in
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(37:54):
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